European Union regulators are investigating manufacturers of microchips for smart cards, looking at possible incidents of price-fixing. According to a report by Bloomberg, the European Commission may send selected, but unnamed, companies a statement of objections that lists the antitrust concerns. The case has been ongoing for years, as the European Commission searched the officies […]

A group of local South Korean banks have joined forces to launch a new NFC payments service, BankWallet, in the country. As reported by Mobile World Live, BankWallet is the brainchild of Korea Financial Telecommunications and Clearings Institute (KFTC) — a Korean interbank clearinghouse. Storing account holder credentials on the SIM card, the BankWallet solution […]

Pakistan’s 2.1 million federal government pensioners will now be able to their benefits loaded on a smart card, reports the Associated Press of Pakistan. The Ministry of Finance and National Database Registration Authority (NADRA) are working together on this project to give retired federal workers, including army personnel, their benefits electronically. Retired workers will be […]

The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) is working to procure a system that would simplify the process of paying for bus or train fare, turning it into a tap of a smart phone or credit card at a turnstile. According to Transportation Nation, Metro is now accepting bids from tech companies to develop a […]

The Vancouver Transit police anticipates that it will see more cases of transit fraud once TransLink, the city’s public transportation system, introduces the Compass smart-card system in the fall, reports the Vancouver Sun. TransLink believes that fraud with the new smart card system could be higher than the fraud it experiences with reselling fraudulent student […]

As identification technologies evolve, so too do hackers. This was a topic of discussion at Smart Card Alliance’s 11th Annual Government Convention held in Washington, D.C. in November. “If you don’t first know who’s on your network, you don’t really know if they’re supposed to be there,” says Betsy Hight, vice president of the Cybersecurity […]

NXP and Gemalto have been awarded first place rankings within ABI Research’s latest transportation and ticketing smart cards and ICs Competitive Assessment. The ABI assessment consists of full year 2011 and first half 2012 market shares and two vendor matrices, one for secure ICs and the other smart card vendors. The Competitive Assessment provides a […]

The February meeting of the influential Government Smart Card Interagency Advisory Board (IAB) was recently held in Washington D.C. FIPS201.com was on hand to cover the event and has provided, as a service to the IAB and the smart card community, an audio recording of the presentations. Click on the link below to access a list […]

By Kathleen Phillips, vice president of distributed issuance, Datacard Group One of the challenges companies face with establishing or upgrading an identity solution is that there is no single “right” solution. It all depends on many factors, including selecting the best solution for the size of an organization – needs change from larger enterprises to […]

The Port Authority Transit Corporation (PATCO), operating the rapid transit between Southern New Jersey and Philadelphia, has inked a deal with Cubic Transportation Systems Inc. to upgrade the card readers at its fare gates to accommodate a new version of its electronic transit fare system. According to Philly.com, the move won’t bring PATCO any closer […]